De Profundis
by YellowFlicker
Summary: Felicity knew what she had to do. But she was afraid. "I can't go down there. I can't," she whispered, turning to her mother. "If I go down there -" "Oh honey." Donna cupped Felicity's cheek, her thumb stroking back and forth. "You're already down there."
1. 6oo mILEs of hAPPineSs

_part i:_ _ **red**_

" _We are here to forget everything that borders on yellow or blue. We are to imagine an absolutely pure red, like the fine carmine suffered to dry on white porcelain._ The unbounded warmth of red has not the irresponsible appeal of yellow, but rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity. It glows in itself, maturely, and does not distribute its vigor aimlessly.

 _Whoever is acquainted with the prismatic origin of red will not think it paradoxical if we assert that this color, partly_ actu _, partly_ potentia _, includes all the other colors._

 _We have remarked a constant progress or augmentation in yellow and blue and seen what impressions were produced by the various states. Hence it may naturally be inferred that now, in the union of the deepest extremes, a feeling of satisfaction must succeed. And thus, in physical phenomena, this highest of all appearances of color arises from the junction of two contrasted extremes which have gradually prepared themselves for a union._

 _The effect of this color is as peculiar as its nature. It conveys as impression of gravity and dignity, and at the same time of grace and attractiveness. The first in its dark deep state, the latter in its light attenuated tint. And thus the dignity of age and the amiableness of youth may adorn itself with the degrees of the same hue_."

\- Goethe's "Theory of Color"; Wassily Kandinsky's "Concerning The In Art"

 ** _1._** ** _6_** ** _mILEs of hAPPineSs_**

 _The world seemed so glamorous, didn't it, once? And that was my fault, how I wished and fell. In my best moments, looking back, this is what I tell myself: I've wanted only to sleep and dream and wake in some country my heart could call home._

 _—_ _Cecilia Woloch_

Felicity jerked awake, gasping. Her hands fluttered to her waist, the phantom pain so real she could swear she still felt it. She was in her own bed and it had all been just a dream, but it took a couple more deep breaths for that to sink in.

"F'licity?"

She slumped back down with a groan and felt Oliver shift, fitting his knees to the backs of hers, holding her just a little more firmly.

"Everything all right?"

His voice was still rough with sleep, but he sounded alert as ever. Felicity smoothed a hand down his forearm.

"Yeah. I just… had the weirdest dream. What time is it?"

"Not dawn yet."

He strung a couple of bristly kisses at the back of her neck, his hand moving soothing up and down her side before he snaked his arm around her torso. Then he stilled. Minutely, but Felicity felt it.

"Your heart's beating really fast, hon," he murmured against her skin.

Felicity closed her eyes and took another deep breath. "Yeah."

"Feel like telling me about it?"

Not particularly, but she didn't want to keep it to herself either.

"We were at PT, a conference or something," Felicity gulped, unable to finish it. "My dad was there too, but it wasn't _right_."

Oliver took a deep breath, his chest expanding against her back, his fingers linking through hers. "Sounds like an eventful dream."

"It was a mess. I got shot," she added softly. Her hand fluttered to her side, as if she would find the bullet wounds there still. A shiver climbed up her spine, shaking her a little. Her tank top sticking to her back reminded her so vividly of her dream and the feel of blood soaking through her coat, that she wanted to take it off. But then she felt Oliver's tension in the way he went utterly still behind her, not even breathing before he propped his weight on his elbow so that he could look down at her face, and she knew getting naked - even in the fun way - would have to wait.

Felicity turned, facing him. His face was still sleep-soft, but his eyes were serious. "This is about last night, isn't it?"

" _No_."

Oliver looked unconvinced. She had known he would think that, and for a flat second there, Felicity did consider if it might have been better not telling him any of it, but then dismissed the thought out of hand. Keeping things from each other, even the little things that were supposed not to make the other worry, didn't pave the way for any place Felicity wanted to revisit.

"I don't know. Maybe." She finally admitted. Oliver fixed an unwavering stare on her that made Felicity roll her eyes. "It doesn't mean anything."

"Kinda means _something_ , Felicity," Oliver said softly.

"You needed me out there last night-"

"I'm not arguing about that. Anymore," he added, at her raised eyebrow. "I just… I'm not sure it's worth it if it's going to end up with you having nightmares every night."

Felicity curled her hands around his biceps. "Look, I'm not a big fan of getting shot at. Or _anyone_ getting shot at, really. And I don't mean that I wasn't scared. It _was_ scary."

Oliver smoothed a stray hair away from her face. "Yes. It was."

"But I can deal with it."

His smile was both proud and resigned. "I know you can."

She poked him on the side, her smile getting wider, more playful. "I know what you're thinking now."

"There isn't much you can't do, is there?"

She snorted. "Don't think for a second you can change the rules just because you're Mister Smoak now."

"Mister _Smoak_?"

"Why, any objections to taking my name?"

Her tone dared him to give her an answer that would land him in trouble. Hell, he was half-tempted to give her some sassy comeback, just to see what creatively satisfying way to get back at him she could come up with.

Instead, Oliver leaned down and kissed her.

"Nope. Not at all. I love your name."

She smiled against his lips, linking their fingers together, their matching rings clinking. His flirty kisses were some of her favorite kisses.

"You know-" Felicity started as she slipped her thigh between his and bit her lip, trying not to smile too wide. She knew her hair was probably all over the place and she had the imprint of her cushion's crease somewhere along her cheek, and knew by the look on Oliver's face, that none of that mattered. " _This_ looks a lot more like the conversation I _wanted_ to have on the morning of my birthday."

He tried to look unimpressed but his eyes were crinkling at the corners. "I can tell you're trying to distract me, by the way."

"Huh. I was trying to seduce you. Obviously I'm doing something wrong here," she arched her back, eyes wide and innocent staring back at him. He was really smiling now as he settled his weight between her thighs and kissed her again.

"I thought you said you didn't want to celebrate it." Oliver reminded her.

"You made a _really_ compelling argument about it last night," she murmured against the shell of his ear and felt his chest rumble with quiet laughter.

"I did give it my best."

And he had. She felt the warmth unfurling low in her belly just remembering how he'd woken her up at 2:30 am, kissing his way down her back and then turning her around, so that he could give her her birthday present.

Thoroughly.

Twice.

Felicity bit her lip to keep her grin from overtaking her face. He was such an overachiever really, but it wasn't as if she was complaining.

"Much appreciated. _Much_ ," Felicity ran her hands up his back, though at this point she was a little breathless and her words were starting to blur together. "Though I'm not really sold on the whole, ' _celebrating it with an actual party'_ part of this arrangement."

"There are plenty of other people who want to celebrate the day you were born and be grateful you're in our lives, Felicity."

He said it so earnestly, as if it was something anyone would say, that Felicity didn't even have the heart to snort.

She did pinch his ass though. Oliver had been kissing his way up her neck, so when he laughed, it was right by her ear and it made her squirm.

He leaned back to look at her, still laughing. " _What_ are you doing?"

"Pot. Keetle."

One of his eyebrows arched up. "Your hands and my ass?"

"Wow, that sounds way dirtier than what it was, but close. You and your ' _happy you're in our lives_ ' little speech."

They both knew thought that it wasn't so different from the one she had given him on _his_ last birthday.

He pressed his forehead on hers gently, eyes soft with feeling. "We match, don't we?"

"Yup." In strange and unpredictable ways, even after knowing each other for so long. "I think I might need you to persuade me a little more though."

She tried to say it with a straight face, she really did, but couldn't really help her grin. Oliver was much better at it though. He kept a completely straight face and sighed, as if put upon, but it quickly lost the wanted effect when his hand slipped down to cup her ass, bringing their hips together and she felt just how _not_ reluctant he really was.

"I suppose I _could_ make my case again."

"Hm. Yup, do that," she murmured as she kissed her way up his throat.

"I'm starting to find out I'm great at negotiations."

She agreed. Enthusiastically. "Yeah. Yup. The best. My thighs can't wait to hear what your hands have to say."

He laughed just as Felicity stopped groping his chest and pulled her tank top off in one impatient motion. He had her nipple in his mouth before that flimsy piece of cotton was off her, palming her other breast, making her hiss and arch off the bed. She felt tender all over from just a few hours before, but not enough to move him. In fact, Felicity threaded her fingers through his hair to keep him close instead, as the other slipped down his chest, scratching a little as she went, and slipped her other hand beneath the waistband of his boxers, palming his perfectly formed ass. His hips arched into her as if against his own volition with a small groan that made her smile. The shiver that shook his whole body was almost as delicious as the way his chest rumbled. Oliver shifted his hips against her, rocking them close together.

That's how they'd done it last night: with him on top, her thighs pressing against his sides, holding on to each other tight as he moved inside at a maddeningly slow pace, kissing her face, her lips, her neck. Hands linked together, breathless whispers against each other's lips, grinding pleasure into each other slowly, deliberately, making love like they were separating salt from water. Like they had all the time in the world and they planned to spend it just like this: being together. And Felicity had never felt more loved or cherished than she had in that moment, surrounded by a world of tenderness.

This morning though, she wanted something else, so she pressed her palm flat against his fast-beating heart and pushed gently. Oliver didn't need more incentive than that to fall back, pulling her with him. Felicity rolled on top of him; kept kissing him, hands skimming up his arms and around his shoulders, pressing her breasts to his chest and moving against him, just a little, because she couldn't help it. The feel of his skin made goosebumps break all over hers.

Oliver's hands chased her as she moved down his body, taking his boxers with her. His confusion showed in his eyes when, instead of getting between his legs or even coming back into his arms, she stood up on the bed right above him.

He really was quite the sight, she thought, as she took in the sight he made looking up at her, wide hands caressing up and down the back of her calves. A thought that was chased away then when he sat up and filled his hands with her ass, using the pull to bring her closer so that he could kiss a line down her stomach to the edge of her boyshorts.

She shimmied out of them before Oliver had a chance to drag them off her, kicking them off the bed with an exaggerated flourish of her foot and a smile, lower lip caught between her teeth. And after, she just stood there, her feet planted on each side of his thighs, and let him look.

His eyes skimmed her up and down, stopping between her legs and at her breasts in a look so hot she could feel it rolling over her like the high-noon heatwave in the middle of August. When he finally got to her face, Felicity's smiled and wiggled her eyebrows at him suggestively. It was kind of beyond the point when she was standing there with her crotch practically in his face, but it still made him grin so wide his dimples showed.

And Felicity swore she'd never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of him just then, grinning even though he was panting. She wasn't that much behind him really, she could feel the heat coiling inside her and liquefying between her legs. But tenderness too was there, soft and alive, beating its soft wings against her chest.

Felicity threaded her hand through his hair and pulled gently, arching his head back. "Laughing at me, Mister Mayor?"

He shook his head and bit his lip but it's not like it dampened his smile any.

"No, I'm not."

She shifted closer as Oliver hugged her thighs and pressed a very innocent kiss on the curve of her belly. Felicity bent her knees then and with his help, sat on his lap, pressing down on him just right, making him suck in a harsh breath.

His eyes were so dark and his hold tighter than he meant it to be, she knew.

She loved him just like this.

"Yes, you are," she whispered as she wound her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth the moment it was close enough.

"I'm laughing because I'm happy," he said softly against her lips, after.

"Yeah?" her voice was thick with emotion and it shook a little.

"Yeah."

It would have been so strange ones, to be so overwhelmed she could cry, but it wasn't anymore. Felicity could see her feelings mirrored in the blue of his eyes, so full of love that it was spilling over.

It washed down her back, warm and heavy and so real it made her spine throb. Love that pooled all around them as her knees dug into the mattress, lapping at her ankles and her thighs and everywhere he touched her. A whole cacophony of sensations that came over her in a rhythm only Oliver seemed to know.

Felicity caught one of his hands and kissed the center of his palm, and then his lips, because she loved both and every inch in between. She pushed herself as close to him as she could, and felt him wrap an arm around her, his other hand tangling in her hair to keep her close as she nipped at his lower lip and then sucked it in her mouth just a little. His moan was a little helpless and his kiss a little desperate.

They had been together for almost two years now. That was twenty months and two weeks' worth of kissing him, in all the ways Felicity could imagine how. And yet there was still a small edge of warm surprise at how someone as controlled and careful as Oliver, could be brought to a point where he kissed so chaotically. That he could want so desperately, and that she could take him to that point every time.

They kissed like that, pressing against each other until the friction was maddeningly not enough and they were both burning with the need of it. Until he buried his face into her neck and took a gentle bite, groaning her name as his hand clenched her ass, trying to bring her closer. By the time she took him inside her she was aching for it, her whole body trembling with need.

She pushed him back down on the bed and leaned over him, palms flat on his chest, and that's how they did it. Fast and desperate, with her thighs squeezing his hips, his feet planted on the bed so that he could give as good as he got.

Felicity's eyes closed and she let head fall back, let herself feel everything. His slick skin beneath her palms, the tips of her hair tickling her back. His hot palms pressing fingerprints on her ass, or pushing low against her belly, delicious pressure. His breathless panting, the helpless groans every now and then that made her push into him harder, twisting her hips the way she _knew_ would make the edges of his vision white out, just to hear those sounds from him again. Her own voice mixing with his, a chain of senseless words that were mostly his name.

She could feel it coming, from the tingle at the tips of her toes, climbing in her veins like a hot wave, coiling the awareness of her every single sparking nerve to where he was inside her. He pressed his thumb lightly against her clit for her to grind against and that was it, there went the last coherent thought she had.

Her eyes snapped open, needing to find his, just as the first rays of the sun pooling through the windows washed over them both.

Felicity's breath hitched, her thighs shook as the twisting tension in her body tightened and then snapped loose. Pleasure rushed over her like warm water, just as Oliver sat up to catch her, holding her against him as she shook, digging trembling fingers into his shoulders and pressing her last whimpers against his mouth.

She kept her eyes open the whole time, looking at him as he looked back. At the flush on his face and his every expression. She could have laughed at how they were both a little cross eyed for looking at each other from so close, but she'd never seen anything so clearly as she saw Oliver in these moments. It did make her smile though, and he kissed that smile, and kept kissing her slowly till she caught her breath, the echoes of her pleasure still fizzing under her skin, making her tremble, as she touched the tip of her nose against his. She was soaked in satisfaction. It clung to her as thick honey might, dripping from every part of her her. From the tips of her fingers to her toes, everything between her bones and her skin, felt both heavy and watery with it.

Oliver smiled back, brushing his lips against her lightly, and then parting her lips and kissing her deep and slow the way she liked best. She could feel the tightly controlled urgency in his kiss though, no matter how hard he tried to hold back. She felt the tension still coiled in his shoulders and realized that he was still hard inside her.

"Oliver?"

He pressed an open-mouthed kiss against her neck and rolled them over, her back against the bed, before leaning down to kiss her. Her thighs fell open as Oliver leaned in close, pressing the two of them together as much as he could because that was how he liked it, holding her thigh against him with one hand and sneaking the other arm beneath her back to grasp her shoulder, the back of her neck.

"Okay?" he asked her, voice strained and shaking for all the effort of holding back.

Felicity nodded, kissing the corner of his mouth and then biting his lower lip gently, pulling him for a kiss just as she pulled her knees up and slipped one arm around his middle. She dug her fingers into his back and then his ass. He groaned and pressed his forehead to hers, snapping his hips into her in short, fast strokes, losing track of his movements and his breathing, until he let go with a deep groan, straining against her.

Felicity shivered at the feeling, and at the sight he made, flushed and sweaty, breathing hard as if there was no air left in the room.

Oliver lowered himself half on top of her, catching his breath against her neck as she soothed her hands up and down his back.

"God…" he huffed, ruffling the curls by her ear.

She smiled. "Nope, still Felicity. Though I appreciate the sentiment."[2]

He kissed her neck as Felicity combed her hands through his hair. He'd tried very hard not to leave a mark but her skin was still red in patches all along her throat, and even redder lower still.

"Third orgasm of the day," Felicity said, sounding almost dreamy. "Excellent."

Oliver laughed, free and unexpected - and right against her ear, making Felicity yelp. He turned to his side and pulled her towards him with the arm that was still between her back and the bed; wrapped her into a fierce hug, even as his whole body shook from laughter, as if she had just said the funniest thing in the world.

It was impossible not to smile.

Felicity shook her shoulder, to dislodge him from where he'd pressed his face against her throat. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm hilarious. Now come up here and kiss me."

He did, pressing smiles up her neck all the way to her lips, kissing her slowly.

Yes, excellent.

x

"If you brush them any harder you're gonna consume them." Oliver said as he got out of the shower. Felicity just glared at his ass in the mirror and spit out the foam of the toothpaste in the sink.

"I'm expressing my feeling," she warned, pointing her toothbrush at his reflection.

He didn't look that impressed. "I can tell."

She gave him the stink eye but there was no heat behind it.

"There _is_ a kind of irony to it, though," Felicity mumbled.

He sidled up to her and pulled the back of her T-shirt down a bit so that he could kiss the back of her neck, before he grabbed his own toothbrush.

"Strange to be the one who is being hacked for once?" he asked.

 _It was_. "Kinda. How would you feel, being on the business end of an arrow?"

Oliver's lips ticked up at the corners. "Cautious."

She made a face at him before glancing down at tablet she'd propped up next to the sink, where the attack's log files were open. This had been a RUDY attack and honestly, if she were not so pissed at being _hacked_ of all things, Felicity would actually be a little bit impressed. That did not change the fact that she would go after whoever was behind this like a battleship firing at will, but as a hacker, Felicity had to admire their determination.

They weren't as good as they thought they were however, if they got it in their heads to go after _her_. Fake modesty aside - her system was pretty close to airtight, and everyone in the business knew it.

But then again, to a hacker, that was like holding up a big " _try to breach me, it'll be fun_ " sign.

Felicity rolled her eyes.

" _I_ would have found a way in," she murmured. She'd hacked the un-crackable before.

Oliver chuckled.

"What, I _so_ would have!" she said, and then she realized that she was getting competitive over _this_ , of all things – which was probably what Oliver found so amusing - and swore under her breath.

Oliver's eyes danced with silent laughter.

She slapped his ass as she walked around him to the cabinet. "Stop laughing at me."

"I _like_ your competitive streak. It's fun."

"It's annoying. And you know it."

He did know it. Cheating at Mario Kart that one time had almost ended with him sleeping on the sofa.

Right then though Oliver just grinned. "Keeps things interesting."

Felicity poked her tongue out at him as she uncapped the Vitamin E oil, enjoying the way his eyes smiled at her even as he kept brushing his teeth. She rubbed the oil along the burns on his lower back, the scars on his shoulders and on every other hurt that had left a mark. She finished up with a kiss right over his heart, Oliver pulled her in for a peppermint-flavored kiss before he let her go.

Felicity walked out of the bathroom and into their walk-in closet. She picked her shoes first - something Oliver found fascinating. He didn't seem to get the logistics behind why it was so much easier for her to choose an outfit, once she had picked the shoes. Though she did love him just a little bit more for how easily he had granted precedence in their closet for her extensive collection of heels. ( _Going by the way he reacted when she pressed the side of said heels against his ass, on the one or two - okay, so five - memorable occasions she'd fucked him with them on, Oliver was as much a fan of her heels as she was._ )

"I'm going to find them. They _must_ have left a mark or something. Every hacker loves attention," she murmured almost as an afterthought, as she picked up her Louis Vuitton hot pink heels, a high-waist pencil skirt, and tried to decide on a blouse.

"Do _you_?" Oliver asked her as he walked in.

"Not really." But her voice trailed off, as she watched him walk around naked, picking out his clothes for the day.

Felicity shook her head to clear it.

"Not anymore, anyway. Attention is the last thing I want when I hack now." She stopped in front of her lingerie armoire and thought about it. "But even before that, it was more about wanting to know if I could do something, rather than wanting _other people_ to know I did it. And anyway, it wasn't until I got to college that the whole ' _anything-you-can-do, I-ca- do-better_ ' brand of arrogance came into it. Around the time I met Cooper."

She thought about that and winced, remembering herself back then.

"He liked me best when I was mean and winning, so that's who I was." She paused, frowned. "That's not really true, though, is it? I enjoyed it. I think that's kind of worse, but I'm not sure."

She knew Oliver was looking at her from the other corner of the closet.

"Yeah, not my best moment." She said with a shrug as she slipped her underwear on, glad she didn't have to look Oliver in the eye in that moment. "It's not even the last time I showed off to get a boy's attention."

Oliver's eyebrows ticked upwards. "Oh?"

She shoved at his shoulder, not moving him an inch. "Oh come on, like you never noticed."

Oliver just shook his head. Apparently he'd never gotten that memo.

Felicity laughed, slipping on her silk blouse on and tucking its hem inside her skirt. "You walked your sweaty shirtless self all over the lair, preening -"

He huffed. " _Preening_?"

"- and _I_ did crazy cybernetic acrobatics. Same difference." She picked out a purple tie she'd gotten for him when they were in Venice with a soft ' _this one_ '. "That really never occurred to you?"

"No. It didn't seem like you cared to impress anyone." But there was a small smile on his face now, and Felicity could almost see him going through every memory of her doing something complicated on her computers and painting it with a different color, in light of this new information. "And I was pretty impressed right from the start, so -"

"Oh, you are in rare form today." she teased as she gathered her hair up and reached out so he could hand him one of the hair-bands that she kept on the counter next to his cuff links.

"I try."

She finished with her hair and turned around, reaching for him so that she could finish tying is tie. That Oliver could do it very well himself was not the point.

"So you just _had_ to stand _this_ close to my station, breathing over my neck when I hacked something?"

"That's different. I find you being the best at what you do very… attractive; I didn't think you were aware of it."

Felicity snorted. "I wasn't! But I gave it my best shot."

Oliver smiled and leaned down to kiss her, lingering against her lips a long moment.

They got through their morning routine a little faster than usual, opting for fruit and yogurt for breakfast ( _and whatever gross kale mix Oliver drank_ ), because Felicity was so desperate to get her hands on a secure terminal at Palmer Tech and see the damage for herself.

"Oh, I talked to Samantha last night -" She bit half of the last strawberry before offering the other half to Oliver. "She said it was totally okay for Will to spend a couple more days over this weekend, so the camping is a go." She caught herself and frowned. "Is it weird that I'm starting to talk like this _out_ of the bunker too?"

Oliver shrugged. "Force of habit, I guess."

"I'm not sure family vacations and military jargon mix well. I find it sends mixed signals."

He grabbed his keys. "We sure plan vacations using military tactics though, don't we?"

Felicity shrugged. He did have a point there.

She helped Oliver into his coat and then he did the same for her, putting the scarf around her neck as she grabbed the coffee.

"The only upside to hiking is going to be catching up to my neglected cardio. And breaking out the fuzzy pink socks again."

"You worked out last night. And this morning."

He sounded especially pleased about that.

Felicity turned and slipped a hand under his jacket, holding it open so that she could get a better look at his chest.

"Do I have something on my shirt?" Oliver asked, looking down with a frown.

"No." Felicity answered in all seriousness. "I was just checking to make sure you didn't wear the ' _she came twice ask me how_ ' T-shirt under it."

Oliver poked her side, exactly where he knew she was most ticklish, and she moved away from him with a loud laugh.

"And it was more than twice, if I remember it right. Which I do."

"Oho, you better watch that: if your head keeps inflating, you won't be able to get it through the elevator doors."

She'd turned her back to him to lock the door behind them so she only heard his laughter, but she could imagine the look in his face perfectly. It was going to be a good day, she knew it.

Once in their building's underground parking lot, Oliver leaned down to give her a 'see you later' kiss before walking to his car.

Just as she was about to turn and do the same, Felicity felt him pull at the lapel of her coat. "You'll still make it home on time tonight, right?"

He had his _serious face_ on.

Felicity pursed her lips. "I'm not gonna bail on my own birthday party. I'm socially awkward, not rude… well, not much. Not on purpose." She rectified hastily.

"And because Donna would probably find you even if you went to the moon."

"Shrieking at a decibel only dogs can hear, yeah. That too." But then she softened, leaned against him a bit. "I've never bailed on you so far, have I?"

"No, you haven't." His smile widened. "Think about the surprise we have for you."

Felicity made a face. "I dunno, I'm not a big fan of surprises."

"You've liked mine so far."

"Hmm… " Felicity pretended to think about it a moment and had to squirm away from him with a laugh when the hand had had been on her waist curled to tickle her side.

She remembered the diamond ring hidden in the dessert, his most memorable surprise so far. Remembered how much they'd laughed later - after the ' _yes!_ ' and the ' _you want to get married so we should talk about the fact that we both know our lives are waiting for us back in Starling, whether we get back to it as vigilantes or not._ '. And the small fight after that, and the making up… it had been a long night.

She still insisted hiding a ring meant for her in anything that had chocolate in it was a tactical mistake.

 _'_ _Have you never_ seen _me eat dessert?'_

 _'_ _It was in the frosting – your fork clicked against it before you even took the first bite!'_

 _'_ _Still! It was a choking hazard!'_

"Okay," she agreed. "I love _your_ surprises." And then more softly."I will make it, I promise."

x

"Good morning, Daniel," Felicity greeted as she walked past the security guard at the entrance of the lobby.

"Good morning Mrs. Queen."

Her walk across the ground floor and into the elevator was filled with polite greetings and nods, but upon reaching the IT department on the twenty-first floor they became less perfunctory and friendlier. Felicity had made it no secret that she was just as fond of her old department now as she had ever been.

Her brain-child was the Cyber-Tech division though, and with the way the stock had been going in the last months, she was going to green-light the expansion of Applied Sciences soon enough as well. What Felicity _really_ wanted was to turn the last ten floors of Palmer Tech into R&D labs. Curtis would love that.

The thought of it made her smile as she walked through the cubicle-filled floor of the main IT floor. The very last one of them, between the wall and the floor-to-ceiling windows was her objective this morning. That was Amanda Jackson's terminal, one of her brightest new hires.

Dennings had almost had a fit when Felicity had proposed promoting a 25-year-old IT girl to Head of Cyber Security, but Felicity had just calmly passed him a glass of water and continued as if nothing happened. More often than not she preferred a conciliatory approach with the board, but on this she was not prepared to give a single inch, which was why it had taken her awhile to get them to approve her new staff. To _approve_ them, not to choose them. Felicity had chosen them the moment she had restructured the IT department, and Amanda was one of the best – someone who Felicity was quite proud to have snatched right under Kord Industries' nose.

Amanda's smooth brown skin and wide eyes made her look even younger than she was, but Felicity knew that beneath the slick professional suits, Amanda, like Felicity, was a hacker.

She'd never said so, of course; Felicity could just _tell_.

Amanda's skill wasn't obvious. According to Dennis' tech advisors she'd never done anything worthy of notice, but that was because they didn't know what to look for. Jonathan Price, Stanford class of '05, freelancing Tech Advisor, was convinced there was nothing of value to look for in the first place _._ [4] It was true that Amanda had never cracked the IRS D-base or the FBI's defensive protocols, but the way she went about solving systemic problems was simplistic, elegant. Their implementation was always flawless. She was immediately able to discern what information was important and what was negligible. As far as Felicity was concerned, she needn't look any further.

Felicity set her bag down on the desk without a sound and glanced at the screens Amanda was locked in on. The other girl didn't react at all, but Felicity had expected that.

"Huh, you're running Gnome."

Amanda startled, eyes wide with surprise when she looked up.

"I'm actually on KDE myself," Felicity continued. "I know this desktop environment is supposed to be better, but you know what they say. Old habits die hard."

"Miss Smo- I mean, Mrs. Queen! So sorry. Good morning. I'm -"

"Amanda Jackson. I remember; I interviewed you myself." Felicity extended her hand and the other girl shook it. She had a firm, warm grip.

Amanda's smile became more relaxed. "Yes, you did."

"You're the one that detected the attack last night."

Amanda blinked. "Yes. But that's because I was on call."

"Don't sell yourself short, Amanda. Plenty of people will be _so_ ready to do that for you, trust me." Felicity saw the head of IT heading towards them and gave Amanda a sly smile. "Hello, Roger. I would like Amanda and her case supervisor to join you for the executive meeting after lunch today."

Roger looked puzzled, but he shouldn't have. "I am quite familiar with the case, I assure you."

"I don't doubt it. But Amanda was the one that stopped the attack last night and she has all the first-hand data, so I would like to hear from her as well. Thank you."

More like, she wanted the board to hear from Amanda directly, but Roger didn't have to know that.

Felicity waved at Amanda and left, calm as she'd come in.

x

 _I kneel into a dream where I  
am good & loved. I am  
good. I am loved. My hands have made  
some good mistakes. They can always_

make better ones.

 _Natalie Wee, "Least of All," Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines_

Felicity started to think she had bitten off far more than she could chew when she went through the threshold of the loft and the shockwave of the shouted " _Surprise_!" almost blew her back out of it. She'd known about the party, but there had been plenty to be surprised about: the whole place was decorated with colorful balloons and flowers and she was pretty sure she'd never seen so many people in the loft at once!

Her mother came forward to hug her first, her hold so tight Felicity was sure she felt her ribs bend a little. She eyed Oliver over Donna's shoulder, but he just grinned, totally unrepentant. Walter congratulated her next, with a big smile so sincere it made Felicity's eyes sting a little. That's how she spent the first hour of the party, going around the room saying hello to everyone.

After, Felicity took a moment to sit down on one of the chairs near the counter and just took stock of the room.

Walter and Thea were chatting up happily by the food table. Felicity didn't know what Thea was telling him about but he looked about proud enough to burst as she loaded his plate with finger food. Laurel had told her about Sara's promise to stop by in 2017 to come celebrate, though they had both neglected to mention that Sara's crew would come along as well. Mick Rory bellowing " _happy birthday, Ponytail_ " before he headed to the bar had been… disconcerting. But also kinda hilarious.

Barry and Iris were talking to her mother, who had stopped flitting around the room like an overgrown butterfly, making sure everyone was having a good time. She was leaning against Captain Lance's arm now and smiling at the newly-engaged couple. Going by the look on their faces, halfway between embarrassment and hidden laughter, they were gaining the full benefit of Donna Smoak's wisdom. Felicity cringed. Yes, the ability to make everything sound dirty was in fact coded into the Smoak DNA. Unlike her daughter, though, it never occurred Donna to be embarrassed about what came out of her mouth.

And yet, despite it all, Felicity bit back a smile. These days she was mostly glad that her mother was around.

Nyssa was talking to Cisco, who looked at her with wide-eyed excitement and open admiration. Felicity hadn't been sure introducing the two had been the best idea; there was just something in the way the Demon's Head was smiling that made Felicity think she was armed.

 _Then again, when wasn't she?_

Sara sidled up to them and linked hands with her girlfriend, pulling pulled her away towards the balcony doors. They stepped out, both grinning, just before Nyssa leaned down for a kiss.

Cisco's disappointment didn't last long because Curtis found him almost immediately after, the two of them geeking out about her dad. Noah seemed to take it all very good-naturedly, answering questions with the polite indulgence of a minor celebrity.

Felicity snorted, rolling her eyes. She hadn't decided yet how she felt about him being there, even though she'd known from the start he would be. But since her reaction hadn't been to immediately say no, then she'd let him stay on the guest list.

 _Baby steps_.

As the evening went on, Thea talked Roy, Amaya and Evelyn into cleaning up the dining room table for a poker game. For a moment Felicity debated warning the others she _might_ have taught Thea a few tricks, but thought better of it when Rip Hunter, Jax and Mick Rory joined the table at the last minute.

It was going to be fun watching Thea wipe the smirk of the faces of men twice her size.

As if hearing her thoughts, Thea turned to her and winked. Felicity tried not to laugh.

Caitlin and Ray seemed so engaged by their conversation, probably on the potential Ray's nanites had in bioengineering and medicine that they'd forgotten all about the cake on their plates. Felicity had no idea what Rory, Nate, and Joe were talking about but she did notice Joe's eyes continuously returning to the corner of the couch in front of him, where Wally and Jessie were making out. He threw a cushion at them at one point, startling both of them; which was a shame, but their faces were hilarious.

Baby Sara and J.J.[3] almost crashed into Wells and Stein on their way to where Oliver, Rene and Lyla were standing by the fireplace, their happy giggles sounding through the loft over the soft jazz music. They ran to Rene, taking his hands and dragging him away with them. He grinned, following them with only a token resistance. Just then Oliver caught her eye, his smile softening just a little. Felicity winked at him. It was the closest she could get to a 'thank you' for the time being, since she was pretty sure that sneaking out of your own party to do obscene things with your husband in the back of your car was considered bad manners.

"How's our birthday girl doing?"

Felicity turned with a smile that got even brighter when John set a fresh glass of wine in front of her.

"My hero!"

He sat down on the stool next to hers and they clinked glasses. The crisp taste of the cool wine was delicious.

"Beautiful necklace." John said, nodding at her throat.

Felicity's hand automatically went to the silver David's star she'd unwrapped from a velvet box just an hour ago.

"Thanks. Oliver made it."

Digg nodded. "Yeah, thought so. Having a good time?"

Felicity couldn't help a little laugh as she dangled one foot back and forth on the stool. It was almost like she was embarrassed to admit it.

"I am."

John's eyes were warm, and not surprised. "You didn't expect to?"

"No I did. I just… It's been awhile since I've celebrated my birthday like this. It's usually a lot quieter."

He should know; he'd been there for it a couple of times.

"Well it's just friends and family here." John reminded her, knowing exactly what the words meant to her.

"Right."

John bumped her shoulder with his gently. Felicity leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder for a long moment, the cheerful buzz of the people around her washing over her like a quiet wave.

"Have you seen Laurel?" Felicity asked, looking around the room again. "I think I missed her earlier."

"I saw her with Ted by the fire escape some five minutes ago."

Felicity grinned. "Laurel and Ted, sitting in a tree, K- I - S- S- I- N- G."

Digg made a sound that was something between a snort and a chuckle.

"You're rolling your eyes, I can tell."

"No, I'm not." He sounded perfectly serious too.

She huffed. "Liar liar pants on fire."

"My daughter sings that rhyme."

"That's cause we're both brilliant."

John took a long gulp from his beer. "Never doubted it."

Multiple dismayed groans rose from the poker table, which had accumulated an audience, now. Felicity looked over to see a very pleased Thea collecting her winnings.

"Who do you think will be the first one to figure it out?" She asked Digg casually.

"I don't know about Amaya, but there's no way Roy, Rip and Mick haven't sat down with someone playing a rigged game before."

Felicity rubbed her cheek against John's arm to get more comfortable. "So has Oliver and he _still_ hasn't figured out you can count cards too."

Digg snorted softly, probably remembering the summer after the Undertaking and the hours they'd spent playing.

"That's cause my poker face is flawless, Smoak, and you pretending not to have one distracts him."

"Thea's poker face is pretty good too," Felicity countered calmly.

Digg pursed his lips and they both watched the impenetrable look on Thea Queen face as she considered her hand. The similarities between Thea and Oliver were rarely as apparent as when they concentrated on something, but Thea had a competitive streak Oliver didn't give into as often.

"Quite a remarkable group of people you have gathered here."

At the sound of Noah's voice, the warm lethargy that had been seeping into her evaporated. Felicity straightened on her seat, taking a breath before she turned to face him.

When she did, Noah smiled at her.

"Happy birthday, Felicity."

The memory of the exact time she'd heard those words last from him flashed in her mind and was gone in a blink.

"Thank you."

"I'll go make sure my kids haven't tied Rene to a chair again." John said gently, laying a hand on Felicity's shoulder before leaving.

Noah watched him go before his eyes turned to her again.

"I especially enjoyed meeting Doctor Wells and Professor Stein." He continued. "They are even better company in person, and they had only wonderful things to say about you."

Felicity fidgeted a little with her glass of wine. "I help out at Star labs sometimes. And with some of Ray's tech, which Professor Stein is familiar with."

She wasn't sure she liked the way he was looking at her in that moment. Like he knew exactly what she was doing.

"You have made loyal friends of the people in this room, but then again, that doesn't surprise me. I knew early on that you would be hard to understand, for some; but never hard to love.[5] [6] "

Felicity opened her mouth to say something, but there was a resounding silence in her head, so she closed it again, and gulped her heart down, trying to stay steady.

Her father's smile softened into something just a touch wistful. "I am very happy you invited me tonight, Felicity. Thank you."

Felicity took a breath, nodded. "I'm glad I invited you too."

And as she said it, she believed it.

"Good." She knew she didn't imagine the elation in his voice, on his face as he shifted his feet and straightened. "That's - I'm glad."

Felicity hopped off the tall stool, smoothing her dress down.

"So, what do you think about my Cyber Security plans for Palmer tech?"

That smile he gave her was more familiar. "I think they look brilliant. And I'd love to test your security protocols."

Felicity almost laughed. Yeah, that part she could have imagined.

x

She was busy pretending to arrange the fruits in the wide serving plates – which is about the only thing she was qualified to do in the kitchen – when she felt his hands on her waist. Felicity closed her eyes and leaned her head back on his chest, taking a deep breath.

"Everything all right?"

The corner of her lips ticked up. The chances that Oliver might have missed her exchange with her father were slim to none, especially going by the way he kept holding on to her, like he was waiting for something.

Felicity turned, smoothed her hands down his chest. "I think so."

He watched her carefully, with eyes that knew her well enough not to miss anything. She let him look.

Nothing about her father was easy and Oliver knew that, but she didn't want to dwell on Noah Kuttler anymore. So she leaned into him, linked her hands at the small of his back and tilted her chin up for a kiss. There was still a small frown on his face just before he kissed her, so Felicity deepened the kiss with a slow slide of her tongue in his mouth. She didn't even have to pull him down, he practically folded himself around her, holding her with both arms so tight the tips of her toes left the floor for a moment.

"Oh my God! You have _guests_ , cut it out!" Thea's voice sounded way too close for comfort.

They separated with a soft gasp, and Felicity hid her laughter against Oliver's neck, both arms tight around him for a moment before he loosened his hold. She couldn't help a little gasp as she slid down his body and on her feet again.

She gulped and they looked at each other for a heavy, charged moment.

"You know, despite how many trained people there are out there, I'm pretty sure I could sneak us out without any of them ever noticing." He suggested.

Felicity was pretty sure she couldn't have helped her small whimper if she'd wanted to. "Not that it's not tempting-"

"It is." Oliver reiterated, his hand sliding down the curve of her ass.

"God, _so tempting_. _But_ I was warned, very sternly and by your sister, that to do that would be really rude. And judging by her tone, she was planning consequences."

"We can think about consequences later," and he pulled her in for another kiss.

Felicity gave in for a moment, before she pulled away. "You are so bad for my long-term thinking."

"Sorry."

"You don't sound like you're sorry."

"You don't sound like you mind." And going by Oliver's smile, neither was he.

"That's 'cause half my brain-functions just fizzled."

He laughed, right against her lips before he kissed them again, light and sweet, both hands cupping her face. He rubbed the tip of his nose against hers, one of those gestures that was so theirs it felt almost like they'd made up a whole new language just to say 'i love you' to each other silently.

She leaned into him, pressed the side of her face into his chest and took a deep breath as his hands came around her. She could smell his soap through the softness of his shirt and her favorite aftershave.

"Oliver."

"Hm?"

"Thank you for the party."

His arms tightened around her. The kiss he pressed to the top of her head was so light she thought maybe she imagined it. But she knew she hadn't. He started rocking them gently back and forth then, and that was when Felicity had to bite her lip so she wouldn't laugh, because her heart suddenly felt like it would drop in her hands at any moment it was so full, and it was a feeling too big to contain.

Somewhere behind her, she heard John laughing and baby Sara's happy squeal. She was surrounded by her friends, and in the arms of the man she loved, his heart drummed a familiar beat beneath her cheek. Her mother was on the sofa, smiling at a smitten Quentin, all her friends were relatively safe and happy and the city hadn't tried to implode on them yet.

It was all so _good_.[7]

 _Perfect…_

A feeling came over her then, the way foreboding does: not there one moment and then suddenly in her throat. Strange and sharp, a sense of knowing without knowing; as if she could lift off the corner of reality by her fingertips and look what laid underneath.

But then Oliver's hand slipped under her hair, cupping the back of her neck gently, and the feeling was gone. Like fog dispersing under a bright spring sun, it melted.

"What?"

His voice was low and soft. One of his hands traced the length of her back, as if he'd felt her fractional disquiet and was trying to smooth it out. His eyebrows ticked upward, encouraging an answer.

Felicity bit her lip, shook her head just a little.

"Nothing… I feel lucky."[8] She whispered it, almost as if it was a secret. It hadn't been so long since an admission like this in the middle of their tumultuous lives would had felt like a jinx. As if happiness was a truth too fragile, anything more than a whisper and it would be taken from them.

Oliver grinned back, his arms tightening around her.

x

"Felicity, are you sure? It's late."

She didn't think Oliver wanted to hear another 'yes' ( _or see her eye roll_ ) so she leaned over the couch to grab her bag ( _instead of, say, walking around to the other side like a normal person_ ). Her bare feet slipped on the floor as she strained and it was Oliver taking her arm that kept her from face-planting into the soft cushions of the couch.

Felicity straightened, grinned at him and blew a wisp of loose hair away from her face.

"I can stop by the bunker after dropping off Thea and bring you the files," Oliver insisted.

" _Or_ \- you drop _me_ off on your way to Thea's; I set up the new searches for this Jonathan Sheen that Rene mentioned-"

"You can do that from here," Oliver reminded her, extending his arm for Felicity to hold on to as she put her heels back on.

"I _can_ , but you know I don't like to access the bunker system off-site," Felicity said, shaking her hair off her face as she looked up at him. "You can pick up me up on your way back. Perfect plan. Let's go."

Oliver sighed, but she didn't need to pull the birthday-girl card – which Felicity was finding out was fun – because when she grabbed his hand and tugged, he followed her. But then he took a quick step and wrapped his arm around her middle, pressing his chest against her back. "If I find you asleep to your station again -"

Felicity's lips pulled into a moue. "One time. It happened _one_ time and I just can't live it down…"

She knew it hadn't happened one time.

Oliver's raised eyebrow kinda hinted that he knew that too.

Felicity rolled her eyes and kept walking, pulling him with her. "Fine it happened like… three times," she allowed. Admittedly it wasn't easy to walk with him plastered behind her, but it was fun.

"Four, if we count last week." Oliver reminded her.

"Guys come _on_!" Thea called from the door. "I have a lot of virtues, but patience is _not_ one of 'em."

"We are not counting last week." Felicity said firmly.

Thea side-eyed them as Oliver closed the door behind himself.

"Why not? You were sleeping with your head resting on your hand -" Thea started.

"I was resting my eyes!" Felicity informed her just as the elevator doors slid closed. Oliver nudged his sister but Thea just elbowed him back in the ribs, making him wince.

"- and the reason I know that is because when your hand slipped and you almost smacked -"

" _Yes_! We _all_ know the details, thank you," Felicity snapped, feeling herself flush.

Which was how they spent the ten minute drive from the loft to the bunker – with the Queens teasing her and Felicity teasing back. ( _In one memorable occasion with Felicity smacking Oliver's ass when they got out of the elevator._

 _'_ _I_ heard _that!'_

 _'_ _So pretend you didn't.'_

 _'_ _Oh my god!'_ )

The staccato of her heels echoed around the empty, silent lair. Felicity walked straight to her station, humming ' _What a wonderful world_ ' happily out of tune. She narrowed her eyes at the manila folder by her computers, as if it was their fault she'd forgotten them there. This time around, shoving those papers in her bag was the first thing Felicity did after powering up her system.

Felicity sat down, sighed and started typing the moment the screens turned on.

She never really did tell, but this kind of silence - broken only by the humming of a powerful machine beneath her fingers and the whirling of the servers' cooling system's fans - was what she was most used to. It was her home level and it always felt comforting.

But it was also a kind of safety she had… not left behind exactly, but outgrown.

Grown around it?

Felicity smiled, thinking about the all her friends in one place and how the hum of that togetherness was not so different from the one she was hearing now. The thought made her smile.

She was just setting the search parameters when she the crack of a door opening from the locker rooms.

Felicity froze.

Lightning-fast, she went through all possibilities. She had not received any notification for a breach in the system, which meant that it was either another member of the team in there… or someone _very_ uninvited.

Hand hovering over the panic button on her keyboard and heart beating hard against her chest, Felicity arched her neck to the side hoping to catch sight of whoever it was in there. The only one of the team that she hadn't personally seen leaving her apartment happily fed and slightly tipsy was Laurel, who had left early. Felicity wanted to call out, but that wouldn't be very smart.

 _Oh, screw it_. "Hello? Laurel?"

No sound came back at her for a very long moment, but just before Felicity reached under the table to wrap her hand around the hidden weapon there, someone turned the corner.

" _John_! Oh my god!" She sagged on her chair and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Felicity!"

She stood up and walked towards him, smacked his arm the second he was within reach.

"Don't _do that_! I almost had a heart attack! And ouch, every part of your arm feels like the tip of my elbow."

He looked about as shocked to see her as she was to see him however. Which was… weird.

"Felicity… what are you doing here?"

"What do you mean what am _I_ – I told you I had forgotten some PT memos in here. What are _you_ doing here? I thought you were going home." Her words trailed off as she looked him up and down with a frown. "Were you wearing that sweater the whole time?"

But then Felicity noticed the rigid set of his shoulders, the shuttered look on his face, the way he kept his hands balled on his sides. There was a small muscle ticking in his jaw that showed up only when the situation was going to shit.

Felicity touched his forearm, confused and apprehensive. "John, is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. I just… needed to talk to you for a minute."

That sounded like a painfully lame lie, but Felicity followed John to the conference table nonetheless. Digg had never been the alarmist kind - that used to be more Felicity's style. After all the things they'd gone through though, she had started becoming better at handling high-stress situations with the same eerie stillness John and Oliver practiced. The kind that was more like the calm of a bomb than that of a person.

"I know how this is going to sound, but I just need you to listen to me anyway, all right." John started. He sounded so hesitant it was unlike him.

"Alright."

John took her hands in his. "What's the last thing you remember?"[9]

Felicity frowned. "What?"

"The very last thing, before you woke up this morning?" John clarified, eyes serious and fixed unblinkingly on hers. "What do you remember?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yes!" John said impatiently.

This wasn't a joke. No one on her team would dare joke like this, especially not in that tone of voice, least of all John. But it was so _ridiculous_ , as far as questions went. And this was saying something, coming from the same woman who had once made Oliver ask a man the color of his shoes while on full on Arrow growly face.

"I… I was _here_ , with the rest of you. We were searching for leads on the new drug rig that we've been hearing about." This made zero sense and she was getting impatient. " _John_!"

"Keep going."

Felicity groaned. "I worked on the few searches I already had running – which turnout up nothing, by the way. No prints, no DNA on any of the shooting scenes. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Ran some scans while you guys were out. Then I went home with Oliver and… And if there is a point in the vicinity, I'd love for you to get to it, cause this is freaking me out."

John ran a hand down his face, as if he'd lost all words. The sight of him hollowed out a small space just beneath Felicity's stomach and a strange heaviness settled there. Just as she was about to ask again, this time without any kind of pussyfooting around, John's head snapped up.

Felicity turned to see what he was looking at.

"Oliver!" Relief wound itself around his name so tightly that it was hard to tell them apart.

She got up and took two steps towards him, but on the third Felicity had to stop because he standing there like he was afraid of her coming any closer. She could have sworn he almost took a step back, if it was not such a ridiculous thing to think.

She looked between Oliver and John, feeling dread start to make room for anger.

"If you two don't come clean with me right this second, I'm slamming that panic button and bringing the whole team here!"

"No, don't do that. Please," Oliver said immediately. "It's just that this is a bit… strange."

"After super-soldiers and dark magic I really think it's safe to say that my bar for weird is kinda high, Oliver."

"Oh, trust me, this is weirder," John deadpanned.

Felicity looked to Oliver for some kind of explanation. He reached out as if to touch her, but then seemed to think better of it, and shifted on his feet instead.

Felicity frowned at him. She had not seen this kind of unsure body language from him since - since…

Her next breath made her heart ache sharply and it felt so real that she instinctively rubbed her hand over her breastbone to soothe it. The sudden twinge distracted her from a memory that had felt right at her fingertips, but then managed to slip away.

"Felicity… if you think about it, you'll remember,[10] " Oliver said softly, eyes wide and full of something that looked like hurt. He took a careful step towards her, close enough that if he reached out, he could touch her. But he didn't. "Try. _Please_."

"Remember _what_?" she asked tightly. His fingers were balled in a fist by his side, so she grabbed his wrist with both hands and held on tight. "Oliver, neither of you is making any sense."

Oliver blinked fast and if she didn't know better she would think he was overwhelmed. It was right there in his eyes: the hurt she didn't know the origin of, the guilt.

 _What…_

"This isn't real, Felicity," [11] he whispered. But despite his soft voice, every word felt like a black stone falling. "All this… the city, Palmer Tech, your life here… it's all a dream. A simulation."

The warm feeling that she had been swimming in all day like Bambi walking through clouds, that same feeling of stubborn positivity that had protected her until this very moment, faded as if it had been smoke. The nothingness she found beneath it scared her so much, Felicity took a step backwards before she knew what she was doing.

"We were kidnapped by… god that's insane, trust me I know, but we were kidnapped by aliens," Digg said from his seat, so seriously that she could have never have mistaken it for a joke. Digg didn't joke about the impossible. "We woke up, you didn't. You're lying on a hospital bed at Star Labs right now, sedated and _dreaming_. You _have_ to wake up!"

Felicity felt her brains failure to wrap around the situation like a _404 Error Page Not Found_ window popping up. The confusion and fear must have show on her face because Oliver reached for her again.

That was, she would realize later, his last mistake. Because just then Felicity's eyes fixed on his right hand, where his thumb and forefinger were furiously rubbing together. She couldn't look away from his scarred knuckles ( _she swore she knew all the tiny marks there_ )… and his bare fingers.

"Felicity!"

But John's voice came to her as if she were underwater.

 _What do I do, what do I do, what… Think damnt it!_

She let out a slow long breath and slowly stepped out of her heels, ignoring the puzzled looks Oliver and John gave her. The cold tiles against her bare soles made her shiver, but she knew it wasn't the cold. She was shaking, but tried to hide it by pacing back and forth in tight circles.

"Okay you were right, that is not just weird _er_. This is _the_ weirdest. You realize that, right?" She looked at them both in the face by turns. "That you sound certifiable?"

John got up and immediately Felicity took a step back from them. Oliver went completely still and John shrunk back, showing her his open palms, as if to placate her.

"We're not here to hurt you." John said slowly.

"So it shouldn't be a problem for you to stay _over there_." She gestured vaguely in front of her. "While I stay over here. Right?"

Oliver didn't move, but his eyes were knowing. "Felicity, don't do it."

She knew that was her last chance so she turned around and _ran_.

John called after her. She'd expected to hear steps chasing after her but she didn't.

Felicity reached her station and slammed her hand on the panic button before she grabbed the small 9mm Luger under her desk and turned around, safety off and already aiming it with both hands.

Oliver and John – whoever those people standing there, wearing the faces of her best friend and her husband – were just a bit further away from where she'd left them. They hadn't chased after her, hadn't drawn any weapons on her.

 _Oh, what the fuck is going on?_

She had some indecision as to where to aim between the two of them but the moment the one who looked like Oliver took a step forward, Felicity fired a warning shot right by his feet that made the three of them flinch.

" _Don't move_."

"We won't. Just don't kill us," John said in a forced calm voice.

It wasn't John though. It _wasn't_.

 _Aliens._ She snorted _. Yeah right._

"It is really us, Felicity," the Oliver who was not Oliver said, and in that _tone_! That gentle way he talked to her when he- God…

"Who are you people?"

"You know who we are." John told her calmly. "I know you're scared, but it's really us."

"No, it's not."

"Feli-"

" _No! It's not_!" she repeated, louder, her anger and her fear almost making her stomp her foot.

Did they think she was stupid?

"John could have come here before I did, but _you_ couldn't have. You're both wearing different clothes!" And the way they both looked at her was all wrong. Felicity didn't even want to think about that one. "And you don't have your ring?"

Oliver, who wasn't Oliver blanched, the look on his face completely wrecked and so _familiar_ that Felicity felt close to tears for no reason at all.

"Felicity…"

She shook her head and tried to breathe through a throat that felt completely clogged by fear. "No. Get on the floor."

"Felicity you have you _listen_ , please!"

" _On the floor,_ _now_!" she finally yelled.

It was just then that the first arrow zipped through the air. The two pretending to be Oliver and John dove out of the way and that was just when everything started going to shit in a mighty spectacular fashion.

"Get back!" Oliver yelled as he charged, putting himself between her and the danger.

Felicity did not need to be told twice.

She scrambled off the platform and took cover behind the steel tables of med bay, the sounds of the fighting, flesh hitting flesh and the grunts of pain following her. She was supposed to use that momentary cover to make her way out, but she couldn't.

Instead Felicity got a better grip of her gun and looked around the corner of the table.

She wanted to do something to help Oliver out of this, but the moment she caught sight of them, she was frozen.

A faint rumble started in the distance, as if a subway train was going past. Which was impossible.

The man with John's face was nowhere to be seen and Oliver… They were both such a blur of movement and violence that she could hardly keep track of either of them. The only way she could tell her Oliver apart from… whoever the other man was, was the fact that she knew her husband was wearing a grey shirt, and the other was dressed in a black. The more she saw of them fighting thought, the more afraid she became. And the more afraid she was, the more brutal Oliver's hits became, giving the other one no quarter, as if he could really sense her fear.

The rumble grew, like an earthquake, shaking the tables, her computers. She looked up to the ceiling at the flickering lights.

 _Get out, get out!_

It was all she could think, but she couldn't leave without Oliver.

Felicity started forward, not even knowing what she wanted to do but unable to stand being still. She remembered those eternal moments in the foundry when she'd thought she would be buried alive under a ton of heavy brick and steel and her heart almost beat its way out of her chest.

"Oliver!"

She didn't want to distract him but they had to get out now!

Oliver kicked the other man straight in the gut, throwing him down, before he turned to her.

"Felicity, get out!"

The rumble grew, a stampede coming closer about to trample her under a thousand heavy feet. The memory of something huge was hurdling towards her, but she couldn't concentrate enough. The noise was too loud, the sounds of violence about her too dense to _think_.

She could see it, how each one of Oliver's hits was a lethal blow just waiting to land and she couldn't _stand it_.

"Oliver! Oliver, _stop_!"

Why? Why should he stop?

She didn't know but she knew he had to.

But Oliver wasn't stopping and the other man wasn't able to keep up. They both had the same feral look on their faces, but one of them would die and the thought of it made Felicity shake.

There was something she was missing. Something important! She could feel it.

But then Oliver stabbed the stranger through the chest with one of his arrows, and whoever he was… he fell.

An unnatural silence pressed against her ears as if all sounds but for her heartbeat had been sucked out of existence.

She couldn't breathe…

" _No_!" The scream that ripped from her scrapped her throat raw.

As if someone had pulled the rug from under her, she fell. As her knees hit the floor, everything came rushing back. The screaming, the shaking. The noise of a building rattling loose where it stood.

He was dead. He was right there, across the lair from her, dying, wide blue eyes fixed on hers…

 _Oliver…_

The cupboards around her flied open as if the room had been depressurized. Drawers shot out, the drugs and scalpels and pincers inside them exploding outward. The glass cases of the team's costumes exploded in a million pieces of glass. She barely felt the sting of their sharp shower cutting into her side as she curled into herself with a scream.

She didn't even know why she was crying and why it hurt. But it did.

It did.

"Felicity…"

It was a whisper, but it wasn't. Inside her head it echoed like a scream in an empty room.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, at the stranger wearing Oliver's face who was lying on the floor, a pool of red growing wider around him.

She looked right at him, and it was Oliver's eyes she saw.

Felicity sobbed, straight from the soul, terrified and helpless. She couldn't move as the ground kept rumbling, the whole room shaking apart.

Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around, and even though she didn't care anymore she was still scared. But then she saw John looking at her, bleeding from a deep cut to his forehead, eyes wide and desperate. And even though she knew it wasn't really John, she couldn't manage being afraid of him.

"Felicity, this is _not real_!" He said to her. "You can stop it!"

But she pushed him away, because the ceiling was cracking and the walls were imploding all around them. Because she didn't know what to do and she just wanted it to be over. She fell down and didn't get back up again.

She'd made a mistake, a huge mistake and now everything was ruined.

Oliver walked towards her among the mayhem whirling around them as if it wasn't there at all. He was looking at John who was not John, who kept telling her to wake up.

Just behind them, Felicity heard her name being whispered one last time, but she was too scared to look back. She _couldn't_! She could not! And she didn't have to, to know that he was dead.

A hole opened up in her chest, like a fresh cut that hurt so badly it made her curl forward on the ground, cheek scraping against the glass there.

In that moment all she wanted was to close her eyes and truly wake up.

Oliver reached them - even among the screaming destruction she heard his footsteps - and made short work of John's defense.

 _Wake up! Wake up!_

Wake up from _what_?

She was bleeding and she couldn't breathe and the building was collapsing on her. This was no dream. Wake up from _what_?!

She opened her eyes and found Oliver's face. He had his arms around her best friend's neck-

 _No_!

The last thread of her resistance was plucked. She pushed herself up on her knees, barely feeling the shards of glass cutting into her palms.

"No! _Don't_! Don't hurt him!"

Among the screaming noise of the building imploding on them, her whisper was lost even to her own ears. But not to his. His blue eyes were calm. Certain.

"It's going to be okay, Felicity." Oliver said, and it made her blood run cold. His arms around John's neck tensed. She knew what would happen.

Felicity rose and everything in the room rose from the floor with her. " _No!_ "

Oliver twisted his grip in one fluid motion.

Felicity screamed.

The ceiling cracked, raining debris all around them. Oliver threw himself on her as if to protect her just before a huge chunk of concrete fell on them both.

There was searing pain.

Then there was nothing.

* * *

[1] These two sentences are from Kandinsky's work

[2] Salma Deera 'salt'

[3] The story is supposed to be canon, and in this canon, the consequences of Flashpoint is that Digg and Lyla had a kid – John Jr. – from their first marriage, and then Sara was born as in canon.


	2. coda: an honorable human relationship

**_coda: an honorable human relationship_**

" _An honorable human relationship - that is, one in which people have the right to use the word 'love' - is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to all persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us_.

\- Adrienne Rich, **'On Lies, Secrets & Silence'**

John gasped awake, gulping a harsh breath that got caught in his throat. He leaned onto his side, coughing. One hand went to his throat instinctively, the memory of Oliver's arms around it harder to shake than any nightmare.

 _Christ…_

John fell back against the gurney's hard surface with a groan and passed a hand down his face. They'd failed.

 _Goddamn it!_

He felt hollowed out, so he didn't open his eyes for some long moments and just focused on breathing in and out instead, trying to get his heart rate down. He concentrated on the feel of the bed against his back, the beeping of the machines around him, the cold metal of the rail that he'd wrapped his hand around.

He'd been doing this for years, but somehow it never got any easier.

John touched his temple, testing if the stinging cut was still there but found only smooth skin instead. His head still throbbed with the memory of it, though.

He gritted his teeth against a curse that threatened to crawl up his throat.

For a simulated reality, everything in there had felt pretty fucking real. And dream or not, an iron bar to the face hurt like hell.

John heard hurried steps getting closer to him, but he didn't open his eyes. He didn't need to, to know it was Caitlyn Snow.

"Mister Diggle! How do you feel?"

He made a vague gesture with his hand.

"Here, drink this." Caitlin passed him a bottle of water, barely waiting for him to wrap his hand around it, before she reached into her pocket.

"Can you follow the light?" She continued, shining a penlight directly on John's eyeballs. He flinched with a hiss.

"Maybe in a couple of seconds, Doc." John said, moving her hand away gently.

Caitlyn retracted her hands immediately. "Oh, of course. So sorry."

John sat up. A wave of dizziness hit him so he closed his eyes again and tried to order the contents of his stomach to stay put. Slowly, he swung his feet off the side of the bed and opened his eyes.

There she was, exactly where he'd left her: in a deeper sleep than anyone could be, on a bed between Oliver and himself. She was eerily still and pale, electrodes taped to her forehead and her breastbone, keeping track of her vitals.

And keeping her hooked to the alien – fucking _alien!_ \- dream machine.

John resisted the urge to groan again.

Three years ago, the idea of Mirakuru had sounded ridiculous. He didn't even know _what_ to think of this! John could only handle it one step at a time, focusing on what mattered. And though his mind couldn't wrap around the fact that he had just been inside a _simulated reality_ Felicity Smoak had created and in which she was trapped in, John knew he didn't have to understand the 'why' and 'how' behind it. It was far simpler than aliens, or dream machines, or whatever the fuck. It was like this: Felicity needed his help. That was the beginning and end of it all for him. When she woke, she would explain him the rest of it and he would listen. Until then, his own feelings on the issue were just a distraction, and as such, they were firmly ignored.

John stood and took a step closer so that he was standing right by her bed. She'd been sweating. It was making the fine hair at her temples curl about her face in a way John knew would annoy her. He brushed one of the curling locks away from her forehead, smoothed it down. Someone had undone her ponytail at some point and for a long excruciating moment, all John could think about was the two them training the summer after Slade's attack and how she used to flick her pony, trying to hit him in the face with it whenever he immobilized her.

John looked up and found Oliver looking at her too, shoulders hunched and hands clasped between his legs, that _look_ in his eyes…

"Oliver. _Oliver_!"

Oliver looked up, blinking. The thousand-yards stare hadn't quite fallen away.

John's frowned deepened. "You alright man?"

"We have to go back." Oliver said slowly, in lieu of an answer.

John looked at Felicity's heart monitor and her neural patterns on the screen just next to it. None of them knew how much time they had to get her out. When she'd helped them get Felicity out of the ship, Kara had told them to be careful. That if she stayed under too long, Felicity might not be able to tell what was real and what was a dream anymore , when she woke. That they might not be able to get her to wake up at all.

John looked around, at Oliver's forlorn face, Palmer and Cisco talking, Caitlin checking Felicity's chart, changing her IV. Out of all the ways he'd thought he would lose a friend, this had never been it.

It didn't feel like any of those times either. Not like those endless grating hours in the waiting room of Starling General, last Christmas. Or the couple of months after that, when Felicity seemed neither here nor there and hadn't quite learned how to hide her pain yet, so she refused to let herself be seen by anybody. Not even like those moments in a League dungeon, feeling her die shoulder to shoulder with him.

All those times had reminded him of how it had felt to be trapped under enemy fire in that small deserted village north of the Registan Desert. Like that trap his unit had fallen south of the Pamir mountains. The exact same way losing consciousness after that grenade had made him feel, knowing Lyla and his unit were out there, about to die: a desperate terror that had left its stain for years. A fear that reached so deep, it made him feel as if his body would come apart without it.

But now…

John wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, shifted on his feet. Yes, they needed to go back.

Cisco walked up to them quickly, fingers flying over the screen of the fortified tablet in his hands.

"Guys, what did you do? The whole simulation just collapsed and rebooted again!" He looked from his tablet to the two of them, expectant.

John scoffed, remembering the terrifying feeling of a room exploding around him. "Yeah it did. Literally."

"Literally?" Cisco repeated, incredulous, his right hand still over the surface of the tablet. "Which… which part was the literal part?"

At any other time, talking instead of _doing_ something might have annoyed him, but this once, John could not blame Cisco for his confusion. He'd just been _in_ that crumbling room and he could hardly believe what he'd seen himself.

"The collapsing part." John answered.

Ramon's eyes rounded with surprise, the hold he had on his tablet slackening minutely. "Wait, are you seriously telling me that the room like… _fell_ on you?"

"Kind of." Oliver finally said, his voice so rough he had to clear his throat. "I thought you'd know?"

"No, I only read the code of how that _thing_ responds to what's happening in the simulation." Cisco pointed at the pieces of equipment they had stolen from, yes, an _actual alien ship_. "I can't actually _see_ what goes on in there."

He turned the tablet so they could see the constant stream of code that kept falling down the screen, like blue rain on a black surface.

"We _have_ to look at it encoded, actually." Ray added, sidling up to them with his own tablet. "They didn't have an image translator and there's way too much data for the ones _we_ have to process. It's… I honestly have no words." He huffed a small laugh. "Felicity would love this."

Oliver flinched so visibly John saw it out of the corner of his eye.

"So, you said the whole place ' _kind of_ ' fell down on you," Palmer asked.

"I don't know what happened, Ray." Oliver snapped. "Does it matter?"

John narrowed his eyes at him in warning. Oliver looked so tense he seemed ready to crawl out of their skin and John could feel each second drag against him like sandpaper, but this was not the best time to take it out on innocent bystanders.

Ray looked between him and Oliver and gulped. "It could, maybe? I won't know unless you tell me."

"There were explosions." John said, a touch more conciliatory than he was sure Oliver would be. "The bunker – that's where we were – seemed to collapse. Or something. It happened fast; a lot of it just doesn't make sense."

Cisco and Ray exchanged a quick look.

"You both died?" Palmer asked with a frown, his fingers frying on the tabled in a familiar way.

John nodded without looking at Oliver.

"Felicity would have had to 'die' too, for the simulation to reboot like that." Cisco said, interrupting John's scrutiny. He used his fingers as quotation marks around the word, but it didn't keep Oliver and John from grimacing.

John cleared his throat. "Yeah she probably did."

The way that room had fallen apart had been like a sequence out of one of those goddamned cartoons his kids watched every Saturday morning. There really wasn't any way she could have gotten out.

She'd died there, under a crumbling building, and John could think of nothing but those first couple of months after the Undertaking, when Felicity had to move into his guest room because of the damage her apartment had suffered. She hadn't slept through the night once, the whole time she'd been there. She'd tried to hide it though, so John hadn't pushed her. And then one night he had caught her in his kitchen, staring at a cup of coffee she'd forgotten to drink. So he'd made them both cocoa, he remembers that so clearly now, it's almost strange. He'd told her about his brother, some of what kept him up at night, and then waited for her to decide of she could trust him with her own fears. She had.

The next day, John had filled in the cracks in the ceiling of the foundry and cleaned up the last of the debris. They'd had Big Belly on the med table and she'd told him she was going to remodel the whole foundry with the money ' _that idiot_ ' had left them. And after that, they were going to find said idiot and make him come home. It hadn't been a question and John had known that if he refused to help her, she'd just go ahead and do it herself. Not that he would refuse or argue.

They'd both needed something to _do_ those months, but it had been twice as hard for Felicity. She'd never seen combat before they'd dragged her into a war. Now her life was one battle after another.

But even after so long, she was still afraid of the same things. And now she'd gone and died _exactly_ the way she'd always feared.

A ' _dream world'_ , Cisco and Ray called it, but to John it sounded more like a nightmare.

He took a deep, slow breath, reminded himself that it hadn't been real. None of it! Felicity hadn't died, she was just afraid of falling buildings, the same way John was afraid of them.

"The version of me that- the one she-" Oliver's words halted, his fists opening and closing as if they were trying to grasp for the missing words.

"Felicity's projection of you?" Palmer helped.

"Yeah, him. He stabbed me. And then…" Oliver stopped again and looked at John.

John frowned at him. _What?_

"I saw him walking towards her." Oliver said, the last bit of color draining from his face as he spoke. "And I- I don't know what he did."

It wasn't a question, but there was one in Oliver's eyes and John felt his shoulders sag, in both understanding and a sharp sense of sadness for a loss that wasn't even his.

Some years ago, when Oliver and Felicity started to become obvious to anyone but each other, John hadn't known how to feel about a potential relationship. Back then, working with Oliver and Felicity had been the first thing in a long time to give John a purpose, after years of doubting if he even was capable of having one. The team had mattered to him more than anything, and he didn't like the idea of anything upsetting that stability. He hadn't known how Felicity's nature and Oliver's volatility would mix, and John hadn't liked not knowing.

When things had gone from obvious to undeniable, the reason for his worry changed too. They lived intense lives, and John of all people knew that danger had a way of throwing you out for a loop. That you could never know where you might land, after. If that place would look anything like the place you started in, or its middle. Sometimes love outside a battlefield looked different. Sometimes it wasn't sustainable.

John knew that. He'd lived it.

When the end had come for Oliver and Felicity, John hadn't noticed much of it. He'd been in the middle of his own storm, trying to bring back a brother who had already slipped through his fingers long ago. Sometimes he was ashamed of that. Most days he tried not to think about it. Leaving Starling had meant leaving everything; at the time, he'd thought he'd needed it. That he had nothing but that to give.

But outgoing is never the same as incoming and maybe that was why coming home had felt a lot like walking along the shore of a shipwreck. He kept finding stray bits and pieces of his friends' lives here and there. New coping mechanisms, dynamics he was unfamiliar with, built around stretches of silence so unnatural, John didn't know how to interpret them anymore.

He understood the need for things to be this way though, whether he liked it or not. John knew better than most that neither war nor grief can leave love the way they found it.

It wasn't either of those that he was seeing in Oliver's eyes now, though. Anyone else might not have noticed the alarm there, the guilt, but John wasn't exactly new to this.

"He wasn't walking to Felicity. He was coming for me," John explained slowly, "I was standing right next to her."

He waited for Oliver to look him in the eye and understand, even though he knew he wouldn't, not really. Oliver hoarded guilt as naturally as most men breathed.

"Yeah, but you see, there is no ' _he'_!" Palmer reminded them both, enthusiastically enough to distract them. "Everything you see in there is part of Felicity's unconscious mind. The ' _Oliver'_ in her world is who _Felicity_ thinks you are." Ray considered that a moment, glanced at Oliver and then quickly looked back down to his tablet, his smile wistful. "It's not surprising that in her mind, you're the protector."

Oliver clenched his jaw so tightly John saw a fine muscle ticking there just on the side of his cheek.

"Apparently she thinks you're stronger than you actually are too." Palmer continued without looking up. "Which, compliments aside, does complicate things a bit, since it kind of makes it hard to get around him."

"No that's not… that's not it." Cisco interrupted. "It's not about her _perception_ ; this is…" but he kept being distracted by what he was seeing on his tablet.

John spoke before Oliver could snap. "Full sentences, Cisco. We don't have all day."

Cisco looked up, eyes wide. "Right. Yeah, sure okay. So listen. You're going into Felicity's mind without having been there when the simulation was set up. So far, that has seemed to mean two things. One: her reality is both harder to penetrate _and_ more hostile. With you all together, the simulation had to combine the realities of five different people. This meant that what scared _you_ didn't necessarily scare John or Ray!"

"What does that have to do with-" John started, but just then Sara and Thea burst through the doors, both still in their suits. Oliver's relief at the sight of them was so palpable that it seemed like the temperature in the room actually went up a few degrees.

Thea had her bow in one hand and she lowered the hood with the other. She threw herself in Oliver's arms for a hug, careful not to hit him with the bow.

"Everything okay?" she asked, looking from him to John and then to Felicity.

"No, not really." Oliver admitted." Everything okay with you guys?"

"It's handled, don't worry." Sara answered. "Lyla is still in the field. She's great at neat clean up, your wife."

Sara smiled at John, who could only manage a nod.

"How is she doing?" Sara asked, eyes on Felicity.

"Her vitals are good; brain activity is also totally normal, so there's no reason for alarm yet." Caitlyn said, just as she finished changing Felicity's IV.

John tried not to smile, thinking what Felicity would have to say about needles in her arm.

"Are _you_ guys okay?" Thea asked them then, looking from John to Oliver.

"We're fine." Oliver's answer was curt, but Thea knew him well enough to understand why and not press him. "Cisco, you were saying?"

"Erm, simulation hostility. When you guys were under, there were more of you, so when either one of you guys freaked out, the simulation didn't necessarily collapse to keep you in there, like it just did with Felicity."

"But this world belongs _only_ to Felicity. So that means that, in there, she is basically god and you are her guests." Ray added. "So whatever happens in there, as well as your strength – or hers – is not about muscles. It's about what Felicity _wants_."

John felt lost. "What?"

By the look on Oliver's face he was just as confused and starting to lose patience.

"I mean, it makes sense." Sara said and when everyone turned to her she just shrugged. "When we were under, we all faced our worst enemies and we defeated them at first try."

Cisco nodded. "Yes exactly. Because that was _your_ dream and once you decided that you wanted to leave it, that was it. Of course, you had to ' _fight your demons'_ first, so to speak." Cisco said around a small chuckle that was not received very well. "But you wanted to leave more than you wanted to stay, so you did. Get it?"

Thea stepped forward, arms crossed in front of her. "So you're saying that we won the fights on our way out 'cause we wanted to?"

"Basically, yeah. None of that was _actually_ happening. It was all in here." Palmer tapped his temple. "You just have to get Felicity to realize she's dreaming without scaring her."

"Easier said than done." John murmured. "Why did everything start going to shit the second she started to realize the truth?"

Oliver's eyes snapped to his, wide and startled. "She believed you?"

"I think so. But it didn't matter at that point because we were trapped."

"It's the simulation." Cisco said, drawing their attention. "Kara said that it's a program designed to learn about the subject wired into it. She said that if you try to interrupt it, it's gonna defend itself by turning strong emotions against the dreamer. It's why you guys had to face whoever scared you the most." Cisco looked from Oliver to John, as if willing them to understand. "Basically whatever Felicity is dreaming will turn into a nightmare, if you upset her enough."

"Either way, she'll have to face what she's afraid of to wake up, just like we did." Palmer added, looking at them one at a time. "It makes sense, in a way."

"In _what_ way?" Thea snapped.

John wished he didn't know the answer, but the truth is that he'd spent too much time as a soldier not to know. Everyone keeps secrets, and mostly those secrets are either of fear or of shame. And with most people, if you know them, you own them[1].

"You learn a lot about people once you know what they're afraid of." Sara said softly, looking down at the tips of her shoes.

John wondered in that moment, who he would be, if he wasn't a man who knew these kinds of things.

Thea scowled, but didn't deny it. Oliver, on the other hand, was silent and very still.

John decided then and there that, the next time the Legends, or the Flash, or a white girl flying around in a skirt came looking for them for an emergency, he would lock his team inside the bunker and just play cards for two days.

John checked his watch before taking a gulp of water. Another ten minutes before they could go back under.

Sara took off her jacket with a sigh and sat down heavily on the nearest chair. "I just don't get why she wasn't in there with us in the first place. Why put her apart?"

To John, it wasn't worth wondering because it wouldn't help them any, but he couldn't pretend not to be angry about that too. If she had been with them, they could have all woken up together. Instead they'd found her in one of the pods, completely unresponsive. It had been Kara who told them told them what critical parts of the alien ship's technology to take and what to leave behind. If they had taken Felicity off the simulator manually, who knows if it would be possible for her to wake up at all.

John looked at Felicity's seemingly peaceful face. She'd love the thought of them stealing tech from aliens.

"Oh, she _was_ with us." Palmer piped up. When four different pairs of eyes fixed on him with the same intensity, he dialed down the chipper a little bit. "I downloaded the logs of the simulators we were all into, and it turns out that Felicity _was_ wired in with us, but she kept waking everyone up."

John frowned. "How do you know? I don't remember that happening."

"I don't remember it either," Oliver said, turning to look at Thea and Sara for confirmation. They both nodded.

"Well, I don't ' _know'_ know." Palmer clarified. "But according to the data, the first simulation crashed twice before it was successful. And since Felicity is the only one of us who has her own simulation, I _assume_ she was the one that caused the crashes."

"She knew it was fake. Just like I did." Thea murmured, her voice dropping as her eyes did. She reached for Felicity's hand with one of hers. "Maybe there was nothing in a world made for all six of us to make her want to stay there."

That stung, but then John remembered how desolate the existence he'd imagined for himself had been, and he had to gulp down a whole new level of discomfort, having a close look at himself.

"But that is good news." Cisco reminded them. "It _can_ be good news. Theoretically. If she woke up once, she can do it again."

Thea scoffed.

"She's all alone in there this time, though." Thea murmured without looking up. John tried get a better look at her, but her face was half obscured by the curtain of hair falling over it.

"You think that matters?" John asked her.

The look Thea gave him was familiar.

Thea Queen was one of the most driven and determined people John had met in his life, but she was such a sad kid. On the rare occasions when she let it show, she looked disarmingly like a twelve-year-old.

"It would, if it were me." She admitted with a shrug, sharing a quick look with Oliver before she looked down again.

"Felicity wouldn't want to live in some kind of fantasy-world. She's not like that." Sara stated, sounding absolutely sure.

Thea's smile was pained. "You would have said that about me too, before, wouldn't you? And you would have been right."

She sounded completely calm, but John knew she was hiding something beneath that smoothness, because she hadn't looked up yet. And because Oliver was looking at her like she was breaking his heart.

"I didn't think I'd want to live in a fake world either, until I was in it." She continued. Softly, as if it was neither a secret nor a regret. Just a fact.

John understood, and his fear started to trickle anew, like a reopened wound. Because maybe Thea was right. Maybe this was so difficult because Felicity had already made her choice. Getting everything you ever wanted, even if it wasn't real, after being tired of losing really was something that fucked with your head. He could understand that.

Oliver wiped both hands down his face. "Alright! Wire us back in."

Cisco and Ray shared an alarmed look.

"But… it's not been thirty minutes yet."

" _Cisco_!"

"Kara said-"

" _I don't care_ what Kara said!" Oliver snapped harshly. But then he took a controlled breath and spoke more calmly. "Do it, please."

John watched Oliver carefully. Watched the rigid line of his shoulders, the tension bunched along his muscles that made him look like he was about to spring into violent action, and honestly, he couldn't say he didn't understand where Oliver was coming from.

But still. "We can't fuck around with this stuff Oliver. We barely understand it as it is."

"John-"

"It's not about what could happen to us. What if we mess something up for Felicity?"

The low " _fuck_ " Oliver hissed between his teeth went mostly unheard. John knew he would wait. Felicity was, usually, the surest immovable object to put in front of Oliver when he got like this.

So they waited. John would have been impressed by Oliver counting all the minutes, but the truth was, he was counting too.

* * *

[1] Sense8, season 2


End file.
